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What John McCain's Jokes Say About His View Of Women

Few people would argue that John McCain has a presidential sense of humor, let alone a particularly good one. From "Bomb Iran" to laughing at "my ex-wife is a bitch" jokes that were hackneyed in the seventies, he's not going to win any awards for the best sense of humor in the race. But when it comes to the "jokes" he makes about women, well, I think it goes a little beyond not being the funniest guy around.

The first disturbing thing about John McCain's view of women to surface this season was back in April. Cliff Schechter, author of The Real McCain,reported that McCain, in response to some ribbing about his bald spot, told his wife: "At least I don't plaster on the make-up like a trollop, you c***." McCain himself denied the allegations, there was a spoof made about it that still makes me laugh and many people dismissed it as a joke gone bad. Who really does use the word trollop these days, anyway? And, Schechter's second-hand analysis of the mood of the room could be wrong.

But then, in a June interview with the Las Vegas Sun, John McCain decided he didn't want to answer a question as to why he was seen distancing himself from the scandal-plagued governor, Jim Gibbons. So he tried to deflect the question with humor: "And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago�?�." OK, it's a decades-old unfunny half-joke that gets you out of an awkward situation. That is, if you don't mind distracting your questioner with the hilarity of domestic violence. I'm not laughing.

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?"

Rape jokes are actually never funny, especially not ones to which the punch line is "But she liked it."

Har-dee-har-har. Janet Reno's a man, Chelsea's an awkward teenage and John McCain isn't only not funny, he's seemingly the type of guy who thinks this stuff is funny.

So why is this a big deal? They're just jokes, right? I disagree. The kind of jokes you tell are a reflection of the way you view the world. If McCain was telling racist jokes, then people would assume he's a racist. But, since McCain is only telling sexist jokes, we're all supposed to laugh with the old man and not take what they say about him so seriously. What they say is that he's kind of a sexist, and that's something a thousand Carly Fiorinas shouldn't be able to make up for. This is the man who is asking for our votes to allow him to lead this country and to shape our lives in many big and small ways, and he thinks jokes about rape and domestic violence are appropriate in public and funny. It makes me wonder both about the jokes he tells when the cameras aren't on, and about the serious things he says about women's roles in society when no one but his wife and daughters are listening.